“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” is tracking for an opening weekend that could go as high as $185 million when it debuts on Nov. 22, based on box-office marketing data released Thursday.

The higher pre-release tracking goes, the less reliable it becomes, and we’re still three weeks away from the opening. But the Jennifer Lawrence sci-fi sequel looks like it will be a box-office monster for distributor Lionsgate Entertainment.

The distributor views the numbers more conservatively, and is at this point projecting an opening between $140 million and $150 million, citing the crowded marketplace which will include two major Disney releases: “Thor: The Dark World” (Nov. 8) and the animated “Frozen” (Nov. 27).

If it does hit that high-end mark however, “Catching Fire” would be the year’s biggest opening, ahead of the $174 million May debut of “Iron Man 3.” And it would be within striking distance of the all-time record for a weekend debut of $207 million, established by “The Avengers” in May of 2012. The record for a November opening, the $142 million rung up by “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” in 2009, is well within reach.

I have no idea how they track this and come up with these numbers, but if it gets anywhere near even the conservative estimates of the studios, wow. That will be quite some feat. Of course, as we already learned, the film needs to do better because of the must more massively inflated budget… bleh.

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